72 i NARRATIVE OF A JOURNEY TO PAYTA, 
ants, and constitute an article of trade to Young. children, especially, are cut os; E 
Guayaquil, as well as supplying the whale and I was assured, the average of huma 
ships which frequent the mouth of the ri- life did not exceed fourteen years. 
ver, for fresh water and provisions. From . The clouds of mosquitos which appear 
about five miles, and about eight by the cutaneous irritations, which produce some | 1 
windings of the river, the mouth of which of the deformities I have mentioned. To — 
is rendered difficult and dangerous to enter the effects of climate we must add the abuse 1 
by a sand-bar which stretches across it. of dram-drinking, and, among the lower E 
Such, however, isthe dexterityofthewhale- classes, poor diet, composed chiefly of Ca- | 
' boats, that few accidents occur, andincon- metes, Guavas, Water Mélons, and the - 
venient asitis, it constitutes the only water- fruits of various Cucurbitacee, yielding a — 
ing-place for ships betwixt Callo and Ata- watery unsubstantial aliment. Those who 
cames, on the coast of Esmeraldos. Several have little faith in physic and physicians, | 
whalers arrived during my stay, the cap- may think the want of both no additional — 
tains of which came up to make their pur- calamity, but we must consider their place 
chases and barters: I was amused to see isalwayssupplied byold women and ce 
the court paid them by the inhabitants, in who administer remedies applied at hazard — 
whose eyes the captain of a whale-ship is and recommended by prejudice. A few 1 
a most important personage. He is in fact well-known Galenicals and an honest prac- | 
to them as important as he seems, for he titioner would certainly give a better chance 
represents nearly the whole export trade to the patient. 
of Cametes, on which depends their com- I have entered into these details, because 
mercial prosperity ; several of them have the same causes operate very extensive- 
picked up a smattering of English, the bet- ly on the population of South America, 3 
ter to establish their commercial connex- and account for its feeble progress and - 
ions, an advantage productive of so much frequently stationary, or retrograde, condi- 
jealousy, that while I was there, there was tion. 
a project on foot to beg the Alcaldi's inter- The vegetation round Tumbez might be 
ference against it; but Mr. Puel very ra- called luxuriant, even in the dry season, 4 
tionally told the malcontents, that every near the banks of the river; but as it re- 
body might have the same advantage, who cedes from them, it becomes scanty, and on 
would take the trouble to learn English. the stony ridges is reduced to a few Mimose, 
The inhabitants of the Canton of Tumbez some plants of Melocactus, Cactus heptan 
amount to about two thousand; they are gularis, (hexangularis ; ), both of which rise 
almost all Sambos, a mixture of African to the height of fourteen or fifteen feet, and 
and Indian blood, and are, I know not ex- a species of Capparis, called Sapote de 
actly why, like almost all the inhabitants of perro (Dog's Sapote), because dogs are - 
_ the Peruvian coast, the ugliest race I have said to eat the fruit. 
_ any where seen. The unhealthiness of the On the alluvial soil we find stately groves 
climate is probably a principal cause of the of the Mimosa, called Algaroba (Mimosa 
deformity of their features, as well as of Catechu? ?) the seeds of which are eaten by 
their strange mixture of colours. The ri- the cattle, and an elegant tree resembling, 
r of Tumbez, which descends from the in — and — of its pendant 
AE 
